MEASURING CHANGE OF THE WHEELER PEAK ROCK GLACIER IN GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK

The Wheeler Peak Rock Glacier in Great Basin National Park is the last glacier remaining in Nevada. The glacier may be a source of water to Lehman Creek making changes to this glacier of broad interest to quantifying water resources in the area. Declining snowpack and earlier spring snowmelt throughout the region have motivated a greater interest in the rock glacier. In addition, the ice volume of the rock glacier is uncertain, and it remains unknown if the glacier is a remnant of the last Pleistocene glaciation. Total station surveys of the site in 2011 and 2013 indicate thinning and down valley movement of the glacier. More recently in 2017 and again in 2018 terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data were collected to continue to quantify change at this site and measure high resolution details of change. Pairing the total station and TLS data will reveal long term changes in the overall glacier position as well as smaller scale changes in the last two years. Understanding these annual changes at high resolution will allow us to better understand the volume of buried ice and predict future changes for resource management.